Various confection molding machines have heretofore been made for producing frozen stick confections. Such molding machines generally utilized a plurality of mold members each having a plurality of mold cups arranged in a row and which are advanced in a direction transverse to the rows past a filling station and a stick inserting station to an extraction station. The mold cups are refrigerated to freeze the confection in the cups and then heated prior to the extraction station to facilitate extracting the stick confections.
In some prior stick confection molding machines such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,576,562, the mold cups are arranged with the major cross-sectional dimension perpendicular to the direction of advance of the mold cups through the machine and the extractor apparatus for such molding machines have been arranged to extract and transfer the rows of stick confections in that orientation to a packaging or wrapping apparatus.
Some other prior stick confection molding machines have been made where the major cross-sectional dimension of the mold cups extends parallel to the direction of travel through the molding machine and, in such molding machines, the sticks extending from the confections in the mold cups are relatively close to each other. U.S. Pat. No. 4,392,803 discloses a stick confection extraction apparatus for use on stick confection molding machines where the major cross-sectional dimension of the mold cups extend crosswise of the row. In that patent, the extractor bar assemblies each include a plurality of gripper units that are initially arranged at intervals and orientations along the length of the extractor bar assembly to permit the gripper units to grasp the sticks of a row of frozen confections in the mold cups of the freezing apparatus, and the gripper units are arranged on each extractor bar to be rotated through a selected angle and also separated from each other to greater intervals therebetween to change the orientation of the stick confections and increase the spacing between the stick confections when they are discharged at the discharge station. In this extraction apparatus, all the stick confections from a row of mold cups are discharged in a row at the discharge station and the multi-lane wrapping machine must accordingly have a number of lanes corresponding to the number of mold cups in a row.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,370,844 discloses a packaging apparatus for packaging successive rows of objects in a wrapping machine having a number of lines corresponding to only half the number of objects in each row. As disclosed in this patent, a feeding conveyor has a plurality of gripping means arranged in a single row for holding and conveying objects in a row extending transversely of the conveying direction. Every second gripping means in the row is released at a first depositing station and the row of gripping means is then shifted lengthwise of the row and the remaining gripping means in the row released at a second depositing station so that each line of the wrapper machine receives from each row of gripping means, a pair of objects that were adjacent each other in the row when approaching the first station.